Google just launched an updated version of Google Flu Trends , a service that predicts flu trends by tracking flu related queries on the company's search engine. Until now, Google only showed aggregate data for states in the United States. Starting today, Flu Trends will show data down to the city level for 121 cities . As Google notes in today's announcement, this update was timed to coincide with the National Influenza Vaccination Week . Sponsor Google also offers Flu Trends data on a country level for Mexico , Australia, New Zealand and most of Western Europe. Data on Flu Trends is updated daily. By tracking flu-related queries, Google has already proven to be able to accurately predict the flu levels on the state and country level. It looks like Google now feels like its algorithms are accurate enough to predict influenza trends on a more granular level. Until Google is able to validate this data, however, the company is labeling the city level estimates as "experimental." Google and Google.org - Google's non-profit foundation - sponsor a number of influenza-related projects. Google, for example, now offers a vaccine-finding map and the company is working with the Public Library of Science (PLoS) to to give give scientists a place to collaborate and share research on influenza research on Google Knol . Discuss

Read more:
Google Launches Flu Trends For 121 U.S. Cities

Let's say you want a list of every Fortune 1,000 CEO in the United States, along with a picture and contact information. You can look through Google. Top page results may help a bit. But to get the granularity you need, top page results can only go so far. What's the best way to go about discovering and collecting information that is so often scattered and fragmented? Crowdsourcing works but you need a process and a way to organize the information. Sponsor Smartsheet provides a way to use wikis and spreadsheets for crowdsourcing information from services like Mechanical Turk and Live Works . Smartsheet recently integrated with Google Apps. Clients can work from Google Apps to crowdsource information through Smartsheet. Let's say you have a list of the startup companies from the top 10 metro areas in the United States. You have the names of the companies in Google Apps. But you are lacking the name of the CEO and any contact information. So, you add some columns and open the Smartsheet application directly from Google Apps. You may now make your request to have the work done for you. Smartsheet opens a service such as Mechanical Turk. You describe the job, what you need and set your price. As the tasks are performed, the new information pops into the spreadsheet. You can then import the spreadsheet back into Google Apps. Smartsheet integrates with a wiki environment. For example, Smartsheet works with Brain Keeper . Structured information from Smartsheet may be imported into the wiki, providing the crowd-sourced data to anyone with access. Crowdsourcing is a classic example of how the enterprise can get information almost immediately that could take hours to collect if done manually by one person. The cost savings alone makes Smartsheet an application worth giving a try. SmartSheet is a subscription service. Pricing starts at $9.95 per month on a per-user-basis. Discuss

See original here:
Smartsheet and Google Apps: Crowdsourcing Made Easy

AT&T has announced a new line of Android-based smartphones for 2010. Dell , HTC and Motorola will make the five new devices, which are scheduled to be released during the first half of 2010. Endgadget is predicting that AT&T will be using the Motorola Backflip, while Slashgear has confirmed that the Mini 3i will be the choice for Dell . The other three, Endgadget says, will most likely go to HTC. Sponsor The announcement is good for AT&T customers who wanted an Android phone but are held under contract with the company. Up until now, AT&T has offered the iPhone and a variety of Palm and Blackberry devices, but nothing operating the Android OS. The company made the announcement today at CES where they also announced new initiatives to increase the number of applications available to their customers. To this end, the company is offering a new software developer kit and is looking to sign new distribution deals in order to offer its phone apps worldwide. Nokia also announced today that its Ovi mobile application store will be available to AT&T customers in the United States. Full details can be found in the company's press release . Discuss

See original here:
AT&T Comes Over to the Android Side

It may soon be easier for foreign startup entrepreneurs to set up shop in the United States thanks to immigration reform which would create a specialized startup visa program. The proposed program would make more visas available to entrepreneurs who have at least $250,000 in funding from a U.S.-based venture capital firm, or $100,000 in angel funding. The startup must also have plans to either create five new jobs every two years, raise at least $1 million every two years, or generate at least $1 million in revenue. Sponsor The current system grants 10,000 visas each year primarily to investors that have financed over $1 million with plans to create at least 10 full-time positions. It also allows lower benchmarks for investors in less wealthy countries. However, the new requirements - which are part of a bill proposed by Colorado Congressman Jared Polis (above) - would fall far beneath the current benchmarks, making it easier for smaller companies and those from underprivileged countries to create jobs in America. The idea is the brainchild of programmer, essayist and Y Combinator partner Paul Graham who first wrote of what he called "the founder visa" in April of 2009. In some cases, inspired entrepreneurs enter the U.S., but after their ideas flourish and their visas run out they are in danger of being forced to go home to start their businesses. Investor, entrepreneur and co-founder of Foundry Group , Brad Feld experienced this first-hand at the TechStars program in Boulder, Colorado this summer as two of the ten groups had foreign founders. "Over the summer we struggled to figure out ways to get them Visas - all of the proposed approaches were expensive, risky, and tiresome," Feld says. "Both companies are still trying, but each are now seriously considering returning to their home countries to build their businesses." Along with other entrepreneurs, start-up advisors and venture capital investors, Feld has co-founded StartupVisa.com , a homepage Feld says has been a resource for the movement inspired by Paul Graham's vision. "In the next few months, we'll be expanding it aggressively to incorporate grass roots support and feedback," he told ReadWriteWeb. One of StartupVisa's contributors, Manu Kumar, helps spread the word about visa reform by recounting his own struggles. "There were multiple points at which I came very close to having to leave the United States because of the visa issues," says Kumar. As the country attempts to pull itself out of one of the largest recessions in history, it only seems logical to make it as easy as possible for foreign entrepreneurs to enter the country and create jobs for Americans. "I think this would have such a visible effect on the economy that it would make the legislator who introduced the bill famous," says Graham. "The only way to know for sure would be to try it, and that would cost practically nothing. Discuss

Read this article:
Attracting Foreign Startups: Access To U.S. Could Get Easier

Christmas is a holiday that brings people together, so perhaps it should be no surprise that Facebook has become a part of millions of peoples' Christmas experiences. For the first time in its history, Facebook was the #1 most visited website in the United States on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year, according to traffic analyst firm Hitwise today. That's worth noting. HitWise reported last year that Facebook was #2 behind Google on Christmas. People say that Facebook vs. Google will be the web's biggest battle of coming years - but it looks like Facebook has already won the battle for Christmas. Sponsor Throughout 2009, Google and Yahoo! Mail were both bigger than Facebook, Hitwise says. Facebook was the most popular search query of the last year across all search engine use by US users, however. It's a social network's world these days. One Christmas gift Facebook users may not have expected: December's major shift away from Facebook's initial nature as a privacy-centric social network. Apparently that didn't slow people down from visiting the site on the holidays. Discuss

Here is the original post:
It Was a Facebook Christmas; Site Hits #1 in US For First Time

Tomorrow morning, teams from all across the United States will try to find 10 red balloons. The federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans to moor 10 red weather balloons at 10 fixed locations in the continental United States, and whoever sends in the GPS coordinates of all the balloons first will win $40,000. With this event - called the